If you love plants but don’t have a big budget for them, you might want to consider purchasing a trusty pothos. Known to the scientific world as Epipremnum aureum, this indoor plant is prolific and easy-growing.
Although pruning is something you’ll need to know for proper plant care, don’t worry, we’ll teach you everything you need to know about pothos pruning.
Benefits of Pruning Pothos Plants
Pothos (Devil’s Ivy) are popular houseplants in no small part because they require little maintenance. But occasional pruning can greatly benefit pothos growth.
Many garden centers sell pothos as a tidy and compact houseplant, but pothos is a vine plant.
In the wild, pothos vines can stretch up to 40ft long. However, indoors, pothos can still reach an impressive 30ft long.
Each vine produces waxy, heart-shaped leaves.
In suboptimal growing conditions, the space between leaves will elongate, and subsequent leaf development will become smaller. Inadequate light quality can especially cause this legginess as the branches stretch farther and farther to access any available sunlight.
Pruning can remedy this sparse, leggy growth. Essentially, new cuts encourage new growth and branching. So pruning allows you to manipulate the plant growth pattern.
Want a houseplant that resembles a small shrub rather than a winding snake?
You can prune to stimulate bushy and thick leaf growth close to the crown. Or you can prune back vines to make leaves appear at more frequent intervals.
Pruning pothos is also a cheap and easy way to multiply your houseplant collection. (More on propagation in a bit.)
And perhaps most importantly, pruning pothos helps eradicate diseases such as leaf spot.
Leaf spot disease causes yellow halos to appear on the underside of leaves. If you fail to address it, leaf spot disease will cause new growth to develop a brown color and a mushy texture.
If you notice these halos forming on a pothos leaf, remove the diseased part of the plant.
When to Prune Your Pothos
The best time to prune your pothos is during its peak growing season. This period spans from spring to early fall. Of course, the exact start and end time will vary depending on the climate your pothos inhabits.
Although there isn’t technically a wrong time to prune pothos, pruning during winter won’t encourage new growth. Pothos plants usually enter a period of dormancy from late fall to early spring.
If you prune your pothos during the growing season, the pothos will develop and grow new leaves throughout this period. As a rough guide, it will take pothos about one to two months to grow new leaves after cutting.
You should also prune pothos as soon as you notice any diseased or yellow leaves.
Removing these unhealthy leaves will help your plant conserve energy. It can also prevent the spread of leaf-based diseases.
All varieties of pothos can benefit from pruning. However, adjust the frequency of your pruning regime to match your pothos plant’s growth speed. (Popular varieties such as Marble Queen pothos tend to grow more quickly than highly variegated varieties like Snow Queen.)
How to Prune Pothos Houseplants: A Step-by-Step Guide
1. Sterilize Pruners
You can remove pothos leaves by hand. But using a knife, pruning shears, or sharp scissors will give you the tidiest cut.
Once you’ve selected your pruning tool, sterilize the shears by wiping them with 70-100% isopropyl alcohol. If you’re using an old rag or cloth to wipe the shears, make sure it is also clean.
(And if you’re using gloves, make sure they are clean as well.)
Maybe this step doesn’t seem necessary. Germs are a part of nature, right?
Taking a few minutes to sterilize your gardening equipment can reduce the spread of bacteria and infection between houseplants.
2. Inspect the Leaves
The next step is deciding where on the plant you want to cut. The best cut location depends on what you hope the pruning will achieve.
If you want to reduce legginess, you’ll look at the long trailing vines. Pothos might grow new foliage at the end of a leafless stem. But it will not develop new leaves along the length of the old stem.
So to reduce stretches of bare stem along a vine, you will have to cut back the vine to the point where leaves grow more densely.
If you want to encourage new growth on a bushy pothos, you’ll need to snip closer to the crown (where the stems meet the roots). Leave bottom leaf growth, but remove the smaller new leaves.
To propagate pothos, you need to find a portion of the stem that contains at least four healthy leaves.
3. Find the Nodes
Once you’ve selected the general area of the pothos you want to prune, you need to find the node.
The leaf node is a small brown bump on the stem. It is the point from which new leaves and new stems grow.
4. Trim the Stem
After locating the node, make a cutting a half inch above this point to encourage new growth.
Make any stem cuttings at a 45-degree angle. Cutting at this angle will help the plant heal more quickly.
5. Propagate the Snips
Pothos are easy-to-propagate houseplants. So if you’re pruning, you might as well make the most of your pothos cuttings!
Place the cut end into a container filled with water. Use filtered, chlorine-free water for best results. Make sure the leaves sit above the water.
Set the cutting in a location that receives bright, indirect sunlight. You will need to change the water every two to three days to maintain the oxygen levels necessary for plant growth.
The cutting should begin to form new roots within 20 days. Once roots have formed, you can plant the pothos in soil where it will develop a more complex root system.
Note: If you’re making a cutting specifically for propagating, take a cutting from healthy vines and leaves.
Troubleshooting for Pothos Houseplants
Several factors can influence whether your pothos becomes a trailing vine or a bushy plant. Pruning pothos fixes many aesthetic issues. But there might be another source of your pothos problems.
Here’s a quick troubleshooting guide.
- Pothos Isn’t Vining: If you want your pothos to form a long vine, ensure it can grow vertically or horizontally. Pothos plants have aerial roots that allow them to grow long vines. But these roots need something to which they can attach, such as a trellis. Gravity does not encourage vining, so don’t use a hanging basket if you want lengthy vines.
- Yellow Leaves: Yellowing leaves are most often an indication of over-watering. Make sure the bottom of the pot has drainage holes and is not sitting in water. Test soil surface before re-watering; let the soil dry out completely between waterings. Yellow leaves can also reflect stress from rapid temperature changes or repotting.
- Change in Variegation: Leaf variegation often changes depending on light exposure. Low light can cause leaves to lose all variegation. Direct sunlight will produce the most dramatic variegation but can sometimes burn the leaves. Bright, indirect light is usually best for pothos plants.
- Pests: If you notice pests on your pothos (usually white flies, spider mites, thrips, or mealybugs), apply insecticidal soap on paper towels. Then, gently wipe the bugs from the leaves.
In addition to pruning, remember to keep up regular maintenance: applying liquid fertilizer (every couple of weeks) and repotting (once a year).
How to Prune Pothos for Growth: Let’s Grow
Pruning stimulates growth in pothos plants by encouraging the plant to divert resources from maintaining long, leggy vines to producing new growth.
When you prune a vine, you’re essentially removing a portion of the plant’s overall mass. This causes the plant to react by producing new growth to replace what was lost.
Here’s how it works:
- Energy Redistribution: When you prune a pothos plant, it redirects the plant’s energy from maintaining the existing, often longer, vines to producing new growth. This is because the plant no longer needs to support the pruned sections and can use that energy elsewhere.
- Promoting Bushier Growth: Pruning just above a leaf node (the spot where a leaf is or was attached to the stem) encourages the plant to produce new stems from that node. This leads to a bushier plant with more leaves, as each pruned node can potentially produce multiple new stems.
- Healthier Plant: By pruning, you’re also removing any unhealthy or dead parts of the plant, which can help prevent the spread of disease and pests. This leads to a healthier plant that can grow more vigorously.
- Light Distribution: Pruning can also improve light distribution to the plant. By removing overgrown vines, you allow light to reach more parts of the plant, which can stimulate growth.
Remember, while pruning does promote growth, it’s important not to overdo it. Removing too much of the plant at once can stress it and potentially stunt its growth.
As a general rule, try not to remove more than 20-30% of the plant at one time.
FAQ
Will pothos vine grow after cutting?
Pothos vine will grow after cutting when snipped near a node, as it stimulates new growth, often producing multiple branches. This can be done on branches of any length, encouraging a fuller, healthier plant.
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Davin is a jack-of-all-trades but has professional training and experience in various home and garden subjects. He leans on other experts when needed and edits and fact-checks all articles.